Zardari on Kashmir – realpolitik or betrayal?

Asif Ali Zardari has raised hackles in Kashmir and Pakistan by telling Indian news network CNN-IBN that relations between India and Pakistan should no longer be held hostage to the Kashmir dispute. The leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and widower of Benazir Bhutto said in an interview that the two countries should focus instead on building trade and economic ties.

“I am not getting hostage to that issue,” he said. “The idea is we feel for Kashmir, PPP has always felt for Kashmir, we have a strong Kashmir policy and we always had one. But having said that we don’t want to be hostage to that situation. That is a situation we can agree to disagree (on). Countries do, we have positions, you have positions. We can agree to disagree on everything.”

To be fair, the reaction is more muted than it would have been at the height of the Kashmir revolt a few years ago. Even Greater Kashmir concedes that “no sane person in the subcontinent would advocate continuation of strain in the relations between the two neighbors.”

And aside from the blog mentioned, I can find very little in the Pakistani blogosphere about Zardari’s remarks. Is it a sign of the times or just a reflection of the internet that the response on Kashmir was minor compared to the torrent of blogs unleashed when Pakistan pulled the plug on YouTube? Was Zardari merely reflecting a new realpolitik in Pakistan, or did he betray the Kashmir cause?